Strut mounts provided on the body side are used to accommodate and attach a strut of a motor vehicle chassis, and hence to introduce and relay the forces acting on the body or chassis. As a consequence, they establish a connection between the strut and self-supporting body.
The requirements placed on the durability, strength, structural and torsional stiffness of a motor vehicle body are especially strict in the area of a strut mount. In order to provide enough stability, common strut mounts are fastened to a bulkhead plate that protrudes toward the front from an end wall of the motor vehicle body in the traveling direction of the motor vehicle. Such a bulkhead plate is located in front of the end wall in relation to the traveling direction of the motor vehicle, and essentially extends in the motor vehicle transverse direction (y).
Other embodiments provide for the use of a strut brace, which is joined with both strut mounts provided on the exterior sides of the motor vehicle body, and to this extent enable a reciprocal support of the two strut mounts in the vehicle transverse direction (y).
For example, a strut mount is described in DE 10 2009 032 602 A1. The strut mount here has a two-part design and includes an upper reinforcing part and a lower part of the strut mount. The lower part of the strut mount is here welded with a sheet metal structure of the wheelhouse shell, and the upper reinforcing part is welded with an inner wheelhouse brace.
Both new and alternative engine and transmission systems must be provided for new vehicle concepts, in particular for urban motor vehicles, which are designed and conceived for the inner-city transport of two to at most four people. Such motor vehicles are configured to have as compact and light a design as possible, so as to reduce fuel consumption or expand the range of purely electrically driven vehicles. Such vehicles are provided with comparably short front overhangs, which require that the engine and transmission be partially arranged underneath the vehicle end wall or center tunnel. For service reasons, body-side transverse structures cannot be realized in front of the vehicle end wall.
In such a construction, it is no longer possible to structurally fasten a strut mount to be located in the area of a wheelhouse to the end wall or to a bulkhead plate placed upstream from the end wall in the traveling direction. For weight reasons, consideration cannot be given to using a separate strut brace for joining the opposing strut mounts or strut domes.